That Time Tony got turned into a Unicorn
by indijones4
Summary: In no way were the Avengers ever prepared for this, neither are they prepared for the world of magic that opens up before them. Magic, dragons, ancient revenge and Secret Spellcasters await! First fanfiction. First in a series called: The Strange Experiments. PS. Disclaimer; I don't own anything except Indiana.
1. Prologue

**Author's Notes**

This is my first fanfiction so please excuse any mistakes (I have no idea how this works)

Anyway to the story; it think I am going to make a series (just. be. cause.) called the Strange Experiments.

Don't yell at me if I crash and burn.

Don't yell at me either if you are from America and you spell stuff differently. I'm from Australia.

(Wow the line actually worked, cool)

*looks at line* (Now what?)

* * *

_**PROLOGUE**_

_New York; the city that never sleeps. _

_Its heroes need to sleep though... but a certain Iron Man seems to think that he is an exception. _

To say that Tony liked the night wouldn't be exactly true. He just enjoyed the feeling of being left alone when the others went to bed.

Nobody would come and interrupt him, asking him silly questions like;

'have you handed in your report?'

'have you eaten?'

or

'are you even listening?'

Instead it was just him, his work the robots and Jarvis.

But tonight he had that feeling that someone was watching him.

And he didn't like it.

He froze as he was bent over his work when something crashed to the ground in the shadows of the barely lit lab.

"Dummy?" he asked uncertainly, then blushing slightly when his ever duitfull robot beeped shamefully in reply.

Then he started hearing whispers.

"Jarvis run sercur-" he managed to say before he was flung back by an invisible exploding force.

...

When the resident Avengers in the Stark Tower (so that excludes Thor), heard an explosion coming from one of the laboratories most of them rolled over and tried to get back to sleep cursing Stark for not conducting his frequently explosive experiments at some reasonable hour.

But the next thing they knew a scream was echoig through the building and suddenly everyone was worried.

Sure Tony would curse and shout loudly when some of his experiments didn't work (Or when Dummy thought there was a fire somewhere), but this was screaming; it didn't even sound human.

So the Avengers Assembled and made their way to Tony's Personal Lab, fearful of exactly what they would find.

* * *

So what do you think?

I promise it'll get more interesting in the next chapter... or the one after that. Which should be up soon (**warning**; **slow writer**)

Please review (I probaly need critique)

and

have a nice day or night.


	2. Chapter 1

Bruce reached the lab first, going by the elevator. All the way down he had tried to ask JARVIS what happened but all he got was a whole lot of static and... _Was that polka music?_ Anyway he reached the two inch reinforced glass door and pushed it open.

At first glance nothing seemed amiss; nothing was spewing smoke nor were there any black burn marks; there was basically no sign of an explosion. Then he looked at the bar. Almost every single bottle had crashed onto the concrete floor and in the middle of the puddle of liquor and glass lay a quivering dark brown coated horse.

Actually horse wasn't really correct, he saw that when he came closer his shoes crunching some if the broken shards of glass: For starters it was a bit on the small size; about the size of a deer and it also had the cloven hooves of a deer. One other non-horseish thing about it was that it had a silkly lion tail.

And, yeah, and it, _(no wait definitely a he)_... he had a horn. It wasn't anything special, about the length of a ruler but definitely a horn in the centre of his forehead in the same dark brown tone as the animal's coat.

He also noticed that while the… _unicorn?_ was twitching slightly he was completely unconscious. That was possibly due to shock; there was about a dozen shards of glass marring the coat and blood was slowly seeping out of several cuts.

A unicorn was strange enough as it was, but then Bruce saw a certain _something_ and started having a terrible thought...

As he bent to examine the blue glowing circle in the equine's _(or was it bovine's because of the cloven hooves?)_ chest, Clint dropped down soundlessly from a vent behind Bruce, only making his presence known when he remarked, "Considering this place was hit by an explosion that disabled JARVIS, not ten minutes ago…" he quickly scanned the laboratory and concluded his statement, "- it's in pretty good shape... What's with the horse? ... Is Stark doing animal testing?"

"No, I think-" Bruce started to explain, but Steve, Nat and Pepper chose that moment to enter cutting his explanation short.

They spread out in the lab and proceeded to bounce questions and theories off each other.

"Anything broken," questioned Steve, assessing the situation.

"Nothing but the alcohol," Clint said slight smirk on his face, he couldn't wait until he saw Tony's face about this; messing with his liquor was way too fun.

"That's fine, Tony has about six more bars," Pepper waved the damage away, "but where is he?"

"I think-" Bruce started again.

"Maybe he ran away to have a hissy fit because he exploded his scotch," Clint suggested.

The Avengers pondered it; they could all easily imagine Tony doing such a thing.

Then Steve broke the heavy silence by asking, "What's with the horse?

"Tony's gotten a pet," Clint said with a shrug.

"I don't think it is a horse; it has a horn," Natasha remarked.

"Uh" Bruce tried

"Huh, fancy that _manly_ Stark has gotten himself a unicorn," Clint said, he was secretly, slightly jealous though.

"That's impossible, unicorns don't exist," said Pepper matter of factly.

"Guys-" Bruce complained rubbing his temples, still he was ignored.

"Neither did Norse gods!"

That's it, Bruce had been ignored enough, "Quiet and Listen!" he positively roared.

At once all silenced and glanced shamefully at Bruce, who took a deep breath and said, "I think, well..." and he gestured towards the ark reactor embedded in the unconscious animal's chest.

"...Holy shit," exclaimed Clint _(Steve probably didn't like it, but he thought Cap could probably let it slide, given the situation)_ , "Tony's been turned into a unicorn!"

"..."

And that's when the billionaire, playboy philanthropist turned equine/bovine woke up with his whites showing in his wide eyes.

* * *

**Da Da DAAAH!**

**This would've been up sooner but my laptop crashed and then I was busy with a birthday party… So yeah… sorry. But I think after writing it again, that it is a bit better.**

**Please review.**

**Next chapter will probably up tomorrow. (Australian time)**

**See you then.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Okay I worked extra hard to get this chapter done quickly, but I got bitten by a tick, It ****really**** hurt (and still does). So I was delayed, sorry.**

**Please enjoy. **

* * *

**VERY IMPORTANT****, OTHERWISE THIS CHAPTER IS VERY CONFUSING **

**(... at least more than it is already)**

**KEY **

_Italic = Tony's thoughts_

* * *

When Tony opened his eyes the Avengers were all gathered around him.

He instantly scrambled up, hooves sliding on the wet floor and shied away from them into a corner with ears back and his horn lowered into a defensive position. His chest was heaving and blood bled freely from his multiple cuts.

_Tall long armed creatures. _

_Completely surrounded._

_No escape routes…_

Bruce was still crouching down where he had before, as he reached out a hand and he said, "Come on let me see those cuts."

_Pink fleshy claws reaching, ready to grab and scratch..._

"It's okay Tony, it's us," Pepper said in a soothing tone like she was trying to calm down a frightened horse… which she was. She smiled, but it fell away when Tony's only reaction was that he waved his horn threateningly in her direction.

_Mouths filled with small sharp teeth, ready to bite…_

Clint laughed uncertainly, "Okay Tony, just because you've got a horn doesn't mean you have to show off."

_Sharp, cruel sounding barks…_

"What's wrong with him? It's like he doesn't even know us," Nat said the smallest amount of worry visible in the cracks of her poker face.

Bruce got up, "I don't think he does," going into doctor mode, "Those cuts need to be treated and he's not going to let us do that in this state."

Suddenly JARVIS started up, making Tony dance away from one of the speakers, "Reset and recalibrating done. I am now up and running. Oh, did I miss something?"

Bruce glanced at the rest of the team, "I'm getting sedative; meanwhile you guys try to get him to trust us a bit."

The rest of the gathered looked at each other each silently asking if anyone had any idea.

Pepper clicked her fingers, making Tony flinch from the sound, "I know!" she exclaimed walking over to a very large coffee machine.

Tony's ear flicked forward to attention and his nostrils flared to take in a familiar scent.

_Was that? Smells good, invigorating, bitter…_

_…_

_… COFFEE!_

Pepper smiled as Tony eagerly sniffed towards the roasted coffee beans in her cupped palm.

He took a step forward, then another one and a few more until he was hesitating to take a nibble of the beans. He glanced up into Pepper's eyes and upon finding no malicious intent went to take the treat, but as soon as his muzzle came in contact with her hand he wheeled away and went back to his corner, eyes wide and unseeing shaking his head as if to get rid of an unpleasant thought.

_Didn't have to see that!_

_DID NOT have to see that!_

All of the Avengers present let out a sigh of disappointment.

"That was weird," said Steve, which it was, he thought that Tony would be most likely to trust Pepper out of all of them, "Jarvis, have you got anything on unicorns that might explain some of this?"

"Just a moment, Mr Rogers…" He actually sounded really confused with the whole situation, "...… I have gathered some information. According to the myths unicorns would only let virgins touch them. The unicorn's reaction to Ms Pott's touch makes me believe that this might be accurate to some extent."

"Well. Let me just say this now; Tony being a unicorn is obviously just wrong on so many levels… Wait a second," Clint suddenly thought a little about what exactly JARVIS had just mentioned, "…That means… Ha! I knew you and Tony were sleeping together!"

Pepper's cheeks started turning the same colour as her hair. Natasha threw Clint a cold look and an elbow in the ribs with it. Fortunately Pepper was saved from any further embarrassment by Bruce bursting back into the room gasping for air as he held up a needle, "I've *gasp* got the *gasp* sedative."

"That's great but he won't eat anything from anyone of us, apparently we don't qualify," Clint said kinda annoyed, but Nat knew that was one his ways of hiding worry.

Steve sighed, looking down at the ground resigned, then took the coffee beans, some sugar cubes and the sedative. He slowly walked over to Tony who watched with suspicion, but went up to take the treats when Cap knelt on the floor in front of him.

When his soft muzzle touched Steve's hand he paused and glanced up into the soldier's eyes, who was surprised to see pity in the brown eyes.

_He has lost so many people; friends, comrades, a possible lover… He is worried of losing someone else. Who?_

_... _

_He's worried about __Me__?! I don't know him… I think. _

Tony was so deep in thought as he munched on the sugar and coffee that he didn't notice Steve rubbing his shoulder in a soothing manner or the needle until he felt a small prick and everything started fading into darkness.

Steve stood up and turned around to see the shocked faces of his team, 'Steve Rogers,' he thought, 'you are not going to ever live this down.'

Then JARVIS asked, "Am I correct in the assumption that the unicorn is Sir," the cameras must have scanned the Avengers facail expression and body language for an answer, "It seems I am... This dosen't really compute you know."

**...**

When Tony opened his eyes again, the only one with him was Steve; the assassins were reporting to Fury about the incident, Pepper was canceling some meetings Tony was supposed to go to and Bruce had finished patching the unconscious unicorn up and had gone to make sure he didn't Hulk Out from worry.

Steve was sketching while he sat in a chair and waited, when he felt someone's gaze, he looked up and smiled at Tony who blinked sleepily in return as he lay on the large lab table (he had been a real pain to carry, thank God that elavators had been invented).

"Sorry for tricking you earlier, soldier," Steve said, he had heard that animals could find constant, calm chatter as non-threatening.

He walked over to the disgruntled unicorn rubbed a soft velvety ear, which currently was the only patch of skin that didn't have stitches in, "But you needed tending to and you weren't going to let us do it while you were awake."

_'S all right…_

*Yawn

_just don't call me soldier and I forgive you... I like cats too._

Steve stopped, he could swear he had just heard something, "Did you say something?" he whispered, but Tony was already asleep again.

If he had said something, how of Earth had he known that Cap had been comparing Tony to a cat?

* * *

**Ok some people have asked for longer chapters but really, I'm a ****really**** slow writer and it's easier for me concentrate on short chapters, but I'll try.**

**I will also make sure I don't leave more than a week in between updates. No matter what happens… unless I get blocked off Fanfiction.**

**Also if you were really confused by that please ask me any questions in reveiws and I will answer them in the next chapter.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Have at thee writers block, I shall smite thee with my random thoughts that pop into my head…**

**Yeah I kinda got stuck on what exactly I should write for this chapter. So for some bits I wrote kinda random things and had to suppress giggles when I realised exactly what I had written.**

**Oh yeah, to answer Avengerscrazygal's sort of question; He was comparing Tony to a cat because Tony was acting like a cat, being lazy-**

_Hey!_

**and enjoying pats.**

* * *

**KEY**

_Italics = Tony's thoughts_

* * *

**On board the Helicarrier, above the Bay of Manhattan…**

It was a normal morning on-board the Helicarrier; most of the agents of SHIELD were slowly getting to work. Some higher ups arrived from the ground in quinjets, although they had to share them with other people, but most stumbled from the bunker level

For the agents that worked during the night shifts, this was a time to grab a bite to eat, maybe talk to some friends and unwind before getting some well-deserved rest. Some were already asleep by this time well that was until, "**WHAT THE ****_F*** _****ARE YOU SAYING?!**" their Director's voice echoed throughout the many levels of the Helicarrier.

It was even heard by a poor soul lost in the deepest parts of the hull, who had been surviving on a SHIELD survival packs he had been lucky enough to have been storing when he got lost (He was later able to find his way out due to heading in the direction he had heard his Director's voice where he found a control panel and was afterwards eternally grateful for what was dubbed the BIG SWEAR Incident).

For a moment Fury froze, then he peered under his desk and sure enough there was a small gadget that had the STARK logo on it.

He held up the device and glared accusingly at Hawkeye and Black Widow. Then he pressed the button on it.

"Hello Director Fury," said JARVIS, "normally pressing that button would've connected you to Mr Stark, but he is not currently avaliable. I while now explain how you were 'pranked'. The device in your hand is connected to all speakers of the helicarrier, it scans your lungs for a build up of air that would singnal that you were getting ready to shout, though it would have been set off by gaseous build up too, it then activates its internal microphone to connect at full blast to the speakers of the Helicarrier. Will that be all?"

"Uh Jarvis," Clint was always awkward at addressing the AI after he watched that science fiction movie, Ultron, "can you show Fury security footage of Tony?"

"Of course sir, though I haven't as of yet been able to recover the footage of the actual incident but here is some of what is happening now," Jarvis said he connect the live feed to Fury's computer system, then he paused and asked permission to say something, "And sir?"

"Yes Jarvis?" Clint asked getting more nervous.

"This still isn't really computing," JARVIS deadpanned as the video came up on Fury's computer screen.

The video played showing Tony waking up on the lab bench. He peered at the now asleep Captain America in the chair and tried to get down from on top of the bench, but he wasn't eager to just jump down because of the height. He scanned the room before spotting some buttons; squinting at them he using his muoth picked up a pen that had been left on the bench by Bruce, and threw it hitting one of the buttons. With a whirl of machinery the bench sank to be flush with the floor and Tony stepped easily off it.

Nickering softly, he lay down beside Steve's feet and settled down to asleep again.

Fury turned away from the screen and glanced at his agents, who were both looking slightly awed by the small horse with a horn and- ok it was a unicorn, unicorn's problem solving skills. Of course because they were superspies they had next to no facial expressions, but Fury was the superspy. He could detect minute facial expressions.

'That is adorable… And perfect blackmailing material once this mess is over with' Fury thought to himself gleefully and a smirk materialised on his face, surprising his two best agents who glanced at each other; the last time they had seen that smirk, one of Fury's agents got sent to an 'undercover mission' at a puppy day care centre. The agent had been allergic dogs and had managed to prank Fury.

"So do you believe us?" asked Clint nervously, because JARVIS for some reason had identified him as being the person most likely to answer his questions and was complaining about how the situation wasn't possible on his earpiece.

"Yes I do, only because Stark would never want to be seen as cute in any way," Fury deadpanned as he downloaded the security footage.

**Back at the Stark/Avenger's Tower**

Steve woke up and was surprised to find that the resident unicorn had somehow gotten down from the- … where was the bench? ... Anyway, the Tonycorn-

_What did you just call me?_

-had fallen asleep on his foot. Now his foot was numb, because Tony was so heavy.

_I'm not heavy._

"I carried you," Steve muttered unsure whether his sleep heavy mind was playing tricks on him.

Tony opened one eye and looked at him.

_Fine I am. Go back to sleep, your dreams are nice, sad but nice._

"So you can talk?" Steve said somewhat relieved that he hadn't been going crazy before… unless he was going crazy now.

Tony yawned.

_Technically, talking is using your mouth; I'm projecting my thoughts through contact, into your head, so I'm really communicating on a thought level… but yeah, let's just call it talking… Now go back to sleep_.

Chuckling slightly Steve reached down scratched under Tony's chin where his fur was slightly more scruffier. He really was like a cat; Steve was completely expecting Tony to purr at any second as he petted the patches of skin not covered in stiches.

_Purr, Purr. Now go back to sleep. I'm tired. _

"You've slept for twelve hours!"

_So that's a no then. _

*Tummy Grumble*

_Well let's get something to eat… you do have plants in whatever weird cave place we're in, right?_

Steve's smile fell away. Tony still didn't remember.

**Library**

After Bruce had calmed down a bit he went to one of his favourite places, the Library.

Something about the muted chatter, the rasps of turning pages and the thumps of heavy books had just always seemed relaxing to him.

He was busy trying to find a book on unicorns that wasn't in the kids section when;

"Can I help you?" inquired a voice behind him.

Bruce turned around to face a middle aged man with a goatee and black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Ah yeah, I guess you could. Do you know if there are any books on the mythology of... unicorns?" Bruce asked a bit embarassed.

The librarian flashed a smile and led Bruce to a row.

And there was several books on every mythical creature Bruce could name, dragons, gorgons, peagsi, krakens and bunyips were only some of them.

But there was only one small leather bound book on unicorns, 'Better than nothing,' he thought as he turned around to thank his helper... who had disapeared. Shrugging he sat down at a desk to read. When he opened the book a slip of paper fell out.

It read;

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown,

The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town,

And the rest of the poem was ripped away.

"This day is just getting weirder and weirder," Bruce muttered.

* * *

**Remember that poem it becomes important later.**

**Hopefully I shouldn't tkae as long as I have for the next update, see you then.**


	5. Chapter 4

Hi! Thanks for reviews and sorry for the late update. The holidays ended for me and the back to school rush hit harder than I thought it would.

You know, I did warn you I am a slow writer.

* * *

**KEY**

_Italic = Tony's thoughts_

**_Italic Bold = writing_**

* * *

**Stark/Avengers Tower**

After a ride in the elevator which Tony was thoroughly spooked by-

_The. _

_Floor. _

_Is. _

_MOVING!_

- and after riding one floor only agreed to go the next few with the promise of food, sugar cubes and a large handful of coffee beans, Steve and Tony arrived to the kitchen where the rest of the humans were seated.

_"Food, water, sugar and Coffee?"_

No response from Steve.

That was kind of expected, if he answered Tony, the other humans would think he was going crazy, but he had thought that the human would go get the requested food for him, what had he forgotten … Oh.

_"…Please?"_

Steve smiled down at him and went up to the female with orangey mane; Tony possibly would have called it red if not for the other female with shockingly red mane.

Red means danger in nature and Tony was inclined believe that this held true for this human, she smelt of blood and so did the other human beside her. He had really strange eyes, black, big and shiny.

Yet Steve trusted them so they should be okay… he was going to keep an eye on them though, blood usually wasn't a good thing-

There was suddenly there was a bag of food in front of him, Tony looked up to Steve who gestured in orange-maned-females direction. She seemed important so he browsed Steve's memories for her name.

_Pepper thats her name_

With a nod of gratitude in Pepper's direction, Tony stuffed his muzzle into the bag and started downing the hay.

* * *

**Library**

The book was strange, eerie even. It seemed that whatever Bruce was concentrating on stayed still but he kept on seeing some of the stylised text and sketches moving and flickering in the corners of his eyes.

Anyway, having skipped a ghastly chapter that was labelled; **_Historic hunts for unicorns _**he found some useful information in; **_The gifts of the unicorn_**.

Ignoring the sketch of a unicorn lazing next to the heading, whose lion tail flicked in exasperation of being ignored, he read down the page.

**_Unicorns are telepathic and empathetic. Though they never use magic when it comes to these traits, it is often thought that their singular horn allows the animal to focus the mind and heart._**

**_There are several stages of ability and they basically must be repeated to an extent for each new species for the unicorn to be able to communicate effectively with that new species._**

**_Stage 1 _**

**_The unicorn can sense immediate thoughts of beings they are touching, they also will be able to understand the beings talk and be able to judge fairly easily whether they are to be trusted or not._**

**_Stage 2_**

**_The unicorn will develop the ability to sense the feelings of species that they are familiar with. This may be incredibly useful._**

**_Stage 3_**

**_The unicorn would be able communicate telepathically without contact and possibly from far away. They also may be able to probe a beings mind, but this can be taxing._**

**_Usually these skills would take some time to master but it ultimately depends on the ability of the individual._**

"Oh this is bad, really bad," Bruce muttered slamming the book closed and running out of the library.

* * *

**_Stark/Avengers Tower_**

While he was munching on his food, which wasn't too bad if a bit dry, Tony could feel the stares of the assembled humans on his back.

He had tried shrugging them off but the amount of worry and dismay filled in those stares was excruciatingly and made him feel guilty for causing those feelings.

He wanted them to stop.

He tried staring into danger!-red-maned-woman's eyes, but she didn't drop her gaze away, just kept on watching him and he was forced to drop his gaze from the intensity.

_So they think I'm a stupid animal or something._

_Great_

_Just Great_

And he wasn't in contact with Steve so he couldn't communicate and tell them to stop!

Tony knew what would stop them staring really quickly…

How to do it though, aha if he outwardly expanded his mental awareness to include….

* * *

Unicorn thought process; it's rather hard to explain…

Sorry.

* * *

After a lot of thinking and (munching of hay) Tony thought he had it. He concertrated.

And then.

"_Did anyone ever tell you it was rude to stare?_" was suddenly heard in the gathered humans' heads.

Hearing gasps, that meant he had been successful, he glanced up to see what his hoofwork had done.

The humans in the room had all varying degrees of shock visible on their faces; ranging from Steve's not-really-shock to the two tense people with the blood whiffs who were completely utterly gobsmacked.

He didn't know why, but seeing that much emotion visible on their faces was amusing, so he whinnied, snorted and tossed his head.

"_Ha, ha, HA_"

That might have been a bit mean and disturbing, but…

But…

"_Your faces!"_

He tried to compose himself, he really did, but their faces were just jack hammering away at any of his flimsy composure he tried to erect, so he pranced out of the room into the hallway to give them a chance to-

**DOinK!**

He walked into what felt like a brick wall.

Closer examination though, as he lay stunned on the ground, revealed that he had walked into some kind of tall human like creature with golden hair, silver armour (which now had a dent in it) and a red flowing cape.

_Okay it's not a wall. It felt like one though_.

His vision started to blur as he stood up but he positioned himself between the creature and the doorway to the humans in the other room.

The brick-wall-creature look equally stunned as Tony just had. As they studied each other, Tony's fur bristling slightly and his tail flicking slowly to and fro, an air current breezed down the hallway and the creature's stench assaulted his delicate nostrils.

The stench of blood, blood of innocents and not so innocents, it was radiating from the creature, it had killed thousands, millions even and it was like there was a wave of blood surging from behind it arching over ready to drown Tony. In blood.

Tony was vaguely aware that his ears were plastered against his skull, but the creature seemed to have finished studying him and was making to move past him, into the room he was guarding to the humans that were helping him.

He left out a furious whinny and spun around so the creature was behind him.

The creature, seeing what he was doing, raised its arms to defend its chest with an outcry, "No!"

Tony had no idea what the creature had just said, but he gathered that it had guessed what was coming next, though it was guarding the wrong spot.

**SLAM!**

His pretty cloven back hooves smashed into the not-human's weak spot down below and as the not-human doubled over in pain-

**SLAM!**

His pretty cloven hooves smashed into the not-human's face

As the not-human thing crumpled to the floor, he reared triumphantly, hooves pawing the air, tail swishing-

"Shit!"

That was the third time his thoughts had been interrupted.

Tony turned around; the man with the black bug eyes was staring opened mouthed at him, "You knocked out Thor!"

"_Who_?"

"The guy on the floor behind you"

"_Oh that thing, it's called 'Four'_?"

"He is not a thing, he's our friend"

"_It's killed thousands of innocent creatures, I can smell it_,"

Ok in hindsight that sounded creepy… really creepy.

Bug-eyed-man thought so too. His face whitened and he stepped back with a cry of, "Caaap!"

Steve rushed into hall took one look at the creature on the ground and drew out a small and pointy thingy.

Tony's gaze lingered at the pointy thing he remembered from before somewhere, but his dark eyes meet Steve blue ones as Captain America approached.

He could feel the humans anguish and fear.

He wanted to rush to whatever was making the human feel so scared and gorge it into Swiss cheese, but the thing that was scaring Steve was him and he was pretty sure gorging himself was pretty much impossible; his neck couldn't bend that angle. Not to mention he would freak the humans out even more.

Steve placed a hand on Tony's muzzle. Tony was desperate to them him how dangerous the thing was.

"_The Four thingy it_-"

"It's okay Tonicorn, we'll sort it out" Steve said seriously.

"Tonicorn?!" exclaimed the bug-eyed-man.

"_Don't call me_-"

And Steve was rubbing at the base of his horn, loosening muscles he didn't even realise were tense. Some of the cuts stopped aching because they weren't tensed up anymore.

Ok, maybe he didn't have kill the 'Four' thing, maybye he could leave it to the humans, they seemed adept enough.

Then he felt a prick on his shoulder. Again.

_So thats where I remember it from_

His vision started blurring.

_No, not again!_

_Not now…_

He started stumbling around blindly.

* * *

Bruce arrived at the base of the Tower and rushed into a lift elbowing an important looking person out of the way, he seriously hoped that the person wasn't too important.

"Jarvis, *gasp* give me status *gasp* please"

"Sir just 'took down' Mr Odinson and has had to be sedated… there is also a delivery girl on the balcony."

"Ok then… Wait What?!"

Jarvis activated a small TV screen in the elevator while repeating himself, slower this time remembering that not all humans had the processing power of sir, "Sir just 'took down' Mr O-din-son and has had to be sed-date-ted and there is al-so a de-liv-very girl on the bal-con-ny"

Bruce glanced and the speaker/control pad with a withering glance, but then TV screen booted up and his attention was dragged away from strange AIs.

* * *

Up on the landing pad for Iron Man there was a huge crate and a teenage girl, detaching cables from the crate. How she got herself and the crate up there was a pure mystery, which Bruce couldn't deal with right now.

The girl on screen finished her task and walked slowly over to the glass door and knocked. Flicking a stray strand of raven black hair.

"DELIVERY!" she then cheerily called out peering at her clipboard, "FOR- um…"

She read the name and frowned in confusion, "It says; AVENGERS?!"


	6. Chapter 5

Long-time no see huh? I was in Sweden for a month It is hard to write on a laptop (which is starting to crash) while traveling. Anyway, story time!

* * *

**KEY**

_Italic_ - Tony thinking

(Italic in brackets) – Tony thinking

"(speech inside brackets)" people saying whatever they are thinking to no one in particular.

**_Bold Italic_** – Someone reading something

* * *

*Ding*

The elevator opened and Bruce stepped out into scene of disarray.

Tony was stumbling around blindly; with head hanging low to the floor, Steve was following trying to stop him from smashing into furniture and knocking down paintings, which judging from smashed paper, canvas and glass piles wasn't an easy task.

The assassins were attempting to help Thor, who seemed to be trying to clutch his face and his balls at the same time.

Pepper was just watching the chaos open-mouthed, coffee cup clutched loosely in her grip.

And then in a few moments, it got worse.

First Tony stepped on Steve's foot, which apparently hurt a lot, then he abruptly slammed hard into the wall (well harder than every other time); and the knock seemed to allow him to focus slightly.

Narrowing his eyes, his muscles froze and then strained. The other non-transformed Avengers were alarmed to see his eyes glow ark reactor bright blue before he raised his head, all effects of the tranquilliser gone.

The unicorn glanced sourly at Steve before turning to Thor.

Thor staggered onto his feet, Mjolnir summoned to his grip, ready for the coming battle that may possibly make up for the previous embarrassment.

"I should have realised what creature you are enhörning, but your pelt colour and the glowing circle of blue in your chest confused I and I was lead to believe your species had all been removed."

"_I still have no idea what the Four-thing is saying, but I know I don't like it. Unless it's a compliment, but judging from the tone of its growls, it's not._"

Bruce had a minor freak out (not hulk type luckily, but it was cutting close) at hearing a voice in his head until he realised it was Tony's, and then he started freaking out a little more, 'the book was right,' he realised.

It was looking fairly bad; actually the appearance of Hulk might have made a positive effect for once (Bruce was seriously considering calling for his help to stop Tony and Thor from having a death battle), when;

*Ding*

The elevator opened again to reveal the delivery girl in an orange t-shirt that said **_Dragon Deliveries_**, black jeans, a black cap and of course the mysterious crate.

She didn't even glance into the room before turning to the crate, grabbing the leather handles nailed into the side, and then attempting to pull the huge crate into the room.

Natasha glanced at the other Avengers who were slightly shocked that a random kid had gotten in, so she asked the first obvious question, "Who.. Are you?"

Her answer came amid her attempts to pull the crate out of the elavator, "Delivery girl *uff* Indiana *ghh* at your service."

Pepper opted to ask the other obvious question, "How did you get in?"

"(Must be stuck on the floor or something) Say what you like about delivery people, but I don't have all day, I've still got to get to Minnesota and oh yeah Hawaii before the sun sets, (err shouldn't have left that one last…)," she knelt down to check the corners and the front edge to see if it was catching on something before continuing, "(Would be just my luck if the elevator closed on me) thankfully…his name is Jarvis, right? (Jeez he loves repeating himself) Well he let me in, he asked me if I could help with this situation and I said I could."

"Right," said Clint sarcastically, he guessed the girl had no idea what so ever about exactly who she was dealing with.

"And I have," she insisted, "my sudden, unexpected appearance has paused arguments allowing each of you to think about the situation instead of just responding back."

Well she was fairly right about that, Tony seemed to have completely forgotten Thor and was approaching the girl slowly from behind.

She tossed them a quick hurried smirk and in the split second they could see her face they noticed her pale skin and quick bright emerald eyes.

"…Loki?" whispered Thor and surprisingly it was an actual whisper not his so called 'inside voice'.

And she must have super hearing because she paused, cocked her head to one side and asked cautiously, "Who?"

Bruce answered, he thought it was only common courtesy to answer her one question if they were going to interrogate her, "Well…You look like Loki, you kind of sound like Loki and according to the stories Thor's told us Loki does have a certain skill with transforming himself."

"Welll…Uh, I'm still stuck on the 'who' part, I mean in Norse mythology which I studied for a bit (or was forced to practically follow it), Loki was a half frost giant. I think, thathad something-" she continued confused turning around as she did, to come pretty much face to face with Tonicorn, "HOLY SHH-shhhiba inu!"

Cap was fairly impressed by the girl's dodging of swearing, he was fairly certain she hadn't sworn, shiba inu was a breed of dog right?

"You're supposed to be extinct," she said before weakly laughing and looking at the floor.

"You're the second person to say that to Tonicorn," Hawkeye said bringing up his bow (because he brings it pretty much everywhere where people are comfortable with him having it) to aim an arrow at her.

She laughed at the name but the second she saw the arrow she froze stock still and then…hissed. No kidding, she grimaced; baring her teeth, the green eyes wide in fear.

Tony nickered and trotted between the archer and the girl.

_"Hey, I wanna talk to you! Oh and please don't call me that name"_

The teen seemed to remember that Tony was in front of her and started backing away completely utterly frightened, babbling and muttering incoherent things.

_"Shut up, I want to know what you really are"_

Tony sounded kinda annoyed; the girl whined pitifully like a dog and took another step away.

_"__And__ I am trying to concentrate"_

His eyes started glow blue again before it receded then suddenly a bolt of blue repulsor-like-light shot from Tony's horn to strike the girl's cap.

It struck the cap and flung into the back of the elevator it lay on the floor for a few seconds before it exploded. This time the girl did swear, "Shit…"

And with a flash of green light the girl wasn't there anymore, instead the place she had been was occupied by a pitch black dragon about the size of a shire horse, (as in big) with an orange harness on that extended down to her back legs.

Bright green slit eyes blinked in surprise before glaring at the unicorn.

"If it was bothering you that much, you could have asked you know," the dragon muttered darkly.

The others in the hall hadn't yet reacted to that there was a dragon in the room, but Steve managed to realise that every word the dragon spoke revealed neat, white, sharp fangs.

She (because it was obviously still the girl just with a change of species) swung around to the cap lying on the floor behind her. That she easily managed to turn around in the hall where she took up most of the space was quite startling. Even Natasha would probably be jealous of the grace and flexibility needed do that, in like 50 years.

She inspected the smouldering remains of the cap then shook it angrily at Tony, "This took me months to enchant!"

Tony seemed not to be worrying at all that there was a possibly dangerous creature occupying the space before him. He took his time studying it analysing the bone white claws, horns and chest plates, tightly folded wings and lastly a long lashing tail that ended with what appeared to be half a spade.

She seemed to have recovered a whole lot of confidence now (or was just angry) she literally growled at Tony, "What have you got to say for yourself, Brownie?"

"_I was wondering what you were, now I know, and you are after all the first non-humanoid creature I have met_"

The dragon face-pawed, then snarled at Tony, "You could have asked! There is no need to risk the magical community! And destroy my cap!"

She was menacing towards Tony, her harness clinking, who was taking each of her accusations calmly, which just seemed to anger her more.

Pepper started backing away this was out of her league this was something for, the Avengers.

The Team were gearing up the best they could, Natasha finding a broom that would serve her purposes, Clint replacing his normal arrow for one of the explosive kind, Steve looking around for anything to use and deciding that there was nothing that could help him and Bruce guaging whether the Hulk would behave.

Seeing his friends bristling to help the enhörning, Thor thought that maybe there was something he was missing here. The fact that the dragon and his shield mates seemed to be reacting to something he could not hear seemed to be part of it.

He advanced with the rest of his team.

The Dragon noticed the Avengers again and instantly turned meek, "Ahhh… right humans, and an Asgardian?"

She lowered her head slightly and her ears flicked back, "... with weapons, uh hi" she tried cheerfully.

The Avengers took a step forward together.

"I'm from the Dragon Delivery service," she said pointing with a sharp claw to a badge on her harness, but took a step back at the same time, "delivering magical goods for more than 5 centuries."

Tony now noticed the Avengers' aggressive approach towards the dragon.

_"_

_Hey wait, stop that, she's innocent! There no blood on her!"_

She completely forgot about the Avengers again, "Wow you have the blood scent, awesome! (Ha! I told you Diamond Spine, being vegetarian is good for you!)," she smiled happily, "That's really rare! Though not anymore because you're the only one so technically now all unicorns have it so…"

The Avengers took a step forward again, and the Dragon discovered that there was no more room for her to back away into.

"Eek!" she shrieked and then she dived behind the crate.

"_Wait before this gets out of hand, paw and hoof, how about we make a deal?_"

The dragon peeked from behind the crate before giggling, "pfft, hoof, hehe."

"_I don't hurt 'Four' any more than I already have, and you don't hurt the dragoness that is more innocent THAN ALL OF YOU!_"

Each of the humans present crashed to the ground with their hands over their ears. The dragon winced but remained crouching behind the crate. Thor glanced at his friends worried, but uneffected.

"Ah, Tonicorn, (well if you want me to call you something else, give me your name), being angry and communicating is not a good thing for a unicorn, everyone else can't handle the anger being forced on them."

Tony while looking completely horrified at what he had done, but still saw a question he needed to ask from that.

"_How come you can?_"

She glanced to the floor, "practice"

"_What?_"

*No response*

_"Never mind (must be cutting into her brooding time), what are you delivering?"_

"Er wha?" she had evidently spaced out.

_"You were delivering something, what is it?"_

"Oh yeah, come over here, you've gotten a library worth of books!"

Bruce stood up slowly holding his head (oh he was used to someone venting in his head, but apparently he was only used that person and no one else), "We… didn't order anything"

Cheerfully she answered, "I know, it was prepaid and delivered anonymously at the delivery centre. You should be grateful though," She opened the crate, took out a book and waggled it at Bruce, "magic books are expensive."

"Tony's a billionaire," Pepper said seriously, matter of factly.

She burst out laughing, "pfft... Ha ha-ha!"

The composed herself and gazed apologetically back at Pepper, "…sorry, but you human money is completely worthless in the magic community, I mean paper, metal, it can be enchanted, replicated or you could make it from scratch with the right skill, then of course some could always make the money return to them…"

She glanced at Cap as if she knew he would be one of the most uncomfortable that the entire human economy could be exploited by anyone who knew magic, then continued, "What you need is shards, magic resistant and naturally occurring. You could make them yourself, if you found a shardi-vein but shards are equal in value as shardi of the same mass so…" she shrugged, "There is really no moral problem with that."

Bruce was having a sinking feeling that those books at the library were documentation of real creatures and if so there were quite a few species of magic, and therefore (ever the scientist) asked, "If you have your own currency, how big of a community are you?"

That question seemed to catch her off guard, "Umm, I cannot seriously say."

"Why not?" Steve asked it was a decent question, if they were peaceful.

"Well what I mean to say that after what humans did we just all went into hiding (so paranoid now), only some creatures still stick together."

_"Who?"_

"Who?" asked everyone else, who had now recovered.

_"Jinx"_

"Dragons for the most part, we run the delivery services without us a lot of creatures out there wouldn't be able to survive. There are some Yetis that hang together in their snow caves …. Oh and there are also Gryphons, but they have gotten so secretive that they don't even use the delivery service."

*Awkward silence*

"And I really must be going, places to go, creatures to meet- Argg ok, you owe me a disguise charm-," She picked up all the books in the crate and placed them on the floor. She picked out a few books in particular and threw them towards the Avengers, who each caught one.

Each was about unicorns, obviously.

"There," she winked, "You might need to read up if you want any chance to survive him" she pointed at Tony with a smirk that quickly faded into away into a look of horror, "Oh great… I have to fly, outside without a disguise charm, New York is going to eat me up alive-Wait does this cast-mansion-tow-house… have a pool by any chance whatsoever?"


	7. Chapter 6

I'm so, so tired! Enjoy!

Oh! And please review

I jump up and down happily whenever I get a review! I really do! (I do that when I'm getting chocolate as well)

* * *

KEY

_Italic_ - Tony thinking

"(speech inside brackets)" people saying whatever they are thinking to no one in particular.

**_Bold Italic_** – Someone reading something

* * *

Indiana chose to go to the outdoor pool (they had two; an indoor and an outdoor) because, "There won't be enough room otherwise, ha ha!"

The Avengers didn't like the sound of that, but they had sort of agreed to not hurt her as long as Tony didn't hurt Thor. Clint was pretty sure they were going spoiled unicorn if Tony kept pulling the 'my tantrum hurts you!' trick.

They walked to the pool (Luckily it was on the floor they were on; the elevator probably couldn't take a dragon, unicorn, Norse god and the crate. Even with all of Tony's engineering skills that had gone into making it) the dragoness had just lifted the crate with magic, a green aura wrapped the crate as her eyes were completely glowing green, pupils and all.

She and Tony kept up chatter behind the Avengers as they followed, asking things, noting things, commenting and laughing. She kept on changing moods as the chatter went from serious things, to funny things, to things that made her annoyed (Diamond Scales came up a lot in that section).

She seemed like a cheery, energetic teenager, but Natasha noticed that whenever Tony tried to get any closer than three feet she would side step a little or deliberately fumble the crate or something so she could get father away. She wondered if it was normal behaviour for the dragoness or if she was only like that towards unicorns.

Her question was answered for her when Tony got frustrated, "_Why won't you let me touch you?_"

She went from the middle of explaining why she was a vegetarian to talking in a annoyed 'isn't obvious' tone, "Because Brownie (or should I call you Tonicorn), one; that sounded really dirty. And two; I don't want to get my mind read. OK? I have secrets alright; things that don't need to be found by shouldn't-be-existing unicorn."

Then she cheerfully changed the subject, "Hey did you know you're the wrong colour? All unicorn ever have always been white, oh and I am not trying to be racist of anything but… in the magic community, colours can be very symbolic; like magic auras, hmm I wonder why yours is blue…"

Natasha intervened then (she couldn't let the dragon know more than she should), "Wait if colours are symbolic why are you black?"

Indiana froze, ears flicked back and one eye twitching, "Black is not the colour of evil!" she then deflated, strolled on again and continued calmly, "White represent purity, but purity of what? If it is pure 'goodness', that does not mean that black, whites opposite represents evil. Black absorbs all the colours of the spectrum yet still retains its original colour. Black is incorruptible which is what it represents. Incorruptibility."

Natasha realised that this was a sore point for the dragon the second she froze, it seemed like she was going to have to a whole debate now.

Indiana continued, "And here's a fact, Ancient Egyptians thought black was the colour 'goodness', because it was the colour of the earth that the Nile deposited when it flooded every year. That rich earth was the only reason they could live there in the middle of the desert, it was their lifeblood which allowed thier crops to grow.

"Another fact," she glared at Thor's cape which fluttered as he walked, then proclaimed loudly enough for him to hear, "As far as magic goes; red is the colour which represents evil, because it represents blood, which is spilt because of acts of evil."

Thor spun around and met Indiana's hostile gaze with a glare of his own, "Thou should not imply things like that."

The dragon hmped and shrugged, "Yes, but 'thou' can not deny that 'thou' has spilt many creatures' blood. In your Asgardian wars and your Asgardian hunts."

Thor spun back to be facing away from the impundent dragon.

"It seems I recieve the silent treatment, must be my lucky day, to not have to listen to an arrogant god," she smirked and glanced down at Tony, who had been far too quiet for her taste, "Why are you staring at me like that?"

Tony was indeed giving her an odd look; it was kinda a hurt puppy look mixed with disbelief.

"_Why wouldn't you want me to read your memories?_"

A facepaw again, it was a somewhat human gesture, which made Nat wondered where she had picked that up, "I told you why… Never mind, the pool! Are you guys ready to see some real magic?"

Tony brightened up, "_Yeah magic!_"

She plonked the crate down with a thud then grabbed some of the chains and connected them to seemingly random points on the harness, "No random bolt of magic destroying innocent caps."

"_Hey, I said I was sorry…_" Tony blurted out before he realised that he had not.

And Indiana remembered it too, "No… you didn't."

"_Okay, I'm sorry for magically blasting your cap with untrained magic that could've killed you_"

She stared at Tony a little shocked (usually people go for making things look less serious when asking for forgiveness) before tossing her back and uttering a few short laughs. She shook her head, "Okay now on to business!"

She strolled over to pool side before turning back to the team, "Today," she said in a dramatic voice, "You shall witness a one-of-a-kind spell, which I conjured myself. I'm serious not even the Sorcerer Supreme has dealt with this type of magic."

She turned back to the pool with a whip of her tail, "A reflection portal!"

The Avengers flinched (or twitched for their weapons) as green fire gushed from her mouth to sizzle on the water, though the flames died; as they should.

Clint spoke up, he felt that he had to, "Now what?"

Indiana ignored him as the water in the pool started spinning, faster and faster.

"Whoa, I was wondering what the effects of chlorine would have on the magic. This one is going to be violent," she said with enthusiasm.

Suddenly the water started glowing green, and a vortex opened in the middle. Indiana gazed back at the Avengers eager to see what they thought. They weren't that impressed, they had seen portals before. But it was still quite interesting that she could do something akin to what the tessaract was capable of, with their pool.

Her eager grin was somewhat crushed, but she continued on with the demonstration anyway.

With a shrug of her shoulders her two huge wings unfolded to reveal that she had the wingspan equal to (if not larger than) a quinjet.

One flap was enough to lift her and the crate, which was now hanging from her back-leg ankles, off the floor. The second flap let her rise 6 feet off the balcony, the one after that took advantage of the clear space beneath her and she easily rose to 16ft.

Then she twisted and corkscrew-dived, wings drawn tight around her, into the swirling vortex, which then closed in behind her.

Finally with a comic splosh, the water stopped spinning and the glow diminished.

Clint jogged over to the edge of the pool arrow ready to shoot an arrow; if for example there was a shark or something (what, they were dealing with magic now, it seemed that pretty much anything was possible). Seeing that the coast was clear he turned back to his team and ask, "Did anyone get any of that, at all?"

Most of the other Avengers (transformed or otherwise) were still staring at the pool.

"Cause I sure didn't_"_

Jarvis piped up, eager to be of any assistance whatsoever, "Do not worry Mr Barton, I recorded all of it."

Tony danced skittishly next to Cap.

_"What was that?!"_

* * *

Unbeknownst to any Avenger, JARVIS or Pepper, in a nearby apartment, someone was watching the Stark tower with much interest toward the four legged genius.

The watcher leered and put the magic binoculars down. Then she waltzed over to her pack and took out her phone. After two rings her accomplice picked up.

"Report!"

…calm down, he was an accomplice with an over controlling nature, he didn't dare think he could boss her, her around.

"Well?" his voice was heard again with that stupid accent.

"It appears that the puppet came through; I just saw the Avengers with, and ye would never believe me, a unicorn!" she practically purred through the sentence, unable to control her excitement.

"Interesting..."

Grr so cliché, wait... actually no; because he had acted like this before any movie, book or play was ever written.

"Unfortunately it's pelt tis the wrong shade, so my revenge may be slightly incomplete," she wasn't going to let him or anyone else think for a second that she wouldn't be the one to spill the unicorns blood, "But even if I can destroy only a freak, I believe it may be enough to quench my thirst."

There she could sound sophisticated, just like she was raised.

The voice that answered wasn't him, but his assistant, she sounded as reserved and emotionless as always, as she said, "Happy to hear that, Leona."

Stupid, arrogant accomplice he probably just left his assistant to man the communicator after he heard what he wanted.

Stupid collaborator, arrogant accomplice, conceited co-conspirator, even so the watcher answered the assistant, "Grammarcy, gryphon."

She was starting to have serious 'everyone was lesser than her' issues.

...

She probably needed to see a psychologist soon.

...Yeah

* * *

Back on top of Stark/Avengers tower

"So," said Bruce, "I guess it's time to hit the books."

Clint groaned.

Bruce glared and continued, "Who knows we might even find some reversal spell or something, or at least find out why Tony was turned into a unicorn."

Thor realised what he had been missing, at these words, "Man of Iron is… and I would've… why did he then… What manner of trickery is this?!"

"_What's he saying_?"

Steve glanced at Tony who head was tilted to the side like a little dog, "Wait you don't understand what Thor is saying?"

Tony answered with a gentle shake of his head.

Thor was shocked, enhörningar could understand speech… but why then did they not understand the All-speak which all creatures could understand?

Both Steve and Thor's thoughts were interrupted as Tony's ears suddenly pricked at attention and he bolted inside.

Pepper reacted first, runnig after the unicorn as he ran down the hall, hooves slipping slightly on the shiny polished wood.

The Avengers followed her. Thinking that this day had become too action packed as it was and that they should probably change into thier uniforms if it was going to stay that way.

It turned out that unicorns can run really fast, even with Steve's superior speed he would only round one corner to see Tony disappearing behind another.

Just before they rounded the corner back to the hall with the elavator, they heard;

*SLAM*

"Mother F***er!"

The Avengers rounded the corner to find Tony standing above Director Fury, nickering happily, head nodding.

His voice in thier heads sounded cheerful and did not betray a hint of sarcasm.

"_Hello! My name is Tony! It's really nice to meet you Fury!_"

"I was not made aware that he could talk," Fury deadpanned from underneath Tony.

Natasha answered as once again most of the other Avengers were dumdstruck, "We didn't know until breakfast, sir."

"_You should have seen their faces, hilarious! Oh and I don't talk, I communicate on a thought based level, but of course there is no word for that, I wonder if I could make one up?_"

"And he doesn't remember anything?" Fury inquired.

"Nope, though he acts so much like himself that it is easy to forget sometimes," Clint answered cheerfully wondering how much he would have to bribe Bruce to help him save this moment of JARVIS's security tapes.

_"Who are you talking about?"_

"Never mind Tony," Pepper said resigned, "just get off Fury before he decides to send you to the pound"

Tony leapt off Fury and trotted next to Cap looking extremly guilty.

Fury got up and dusted himself off, before gesturing that they should go into the common room to talk.

Steve, Natasha, Thor and Bruce followed him. Pepper considered whether not she was a part of this, then with a glance at Tony decided she definetly was. If she wasn't, she would make herself a part of this.

Tony went to follow but Clint stepped between him and the door.

Crossing his arms he asked, "Okay mister, so why did you tackle Fury?"

"_Because he's so really, really sad, that it's stupid, nobody should be that sad._"

Tony trotted happily past a dumbstruck Clint.

...

After a few minutes Clint blinked and exclaimed, "Fury has feelings?!"


	8. Chapter 7

**Hello again! Please review! **

**I LOVE reviews!**

**I already told you I jump up and down when I get a review, but you probably didn't know that I also do it in circles around my sister, who looks at me like I'm a crazy person.**

**(... Why did I write that?)**

* * *

**KEY**

_Italic_ - Tony thinking

"(speech inside brackets)" people saying whatever they are thinking to no one in particular.

**_Bold Italic_** – Someone reading something

* * *

Stark/Avengers Tower

Tony trotted after where he had seen the rest of the humans disappear; he reckoned that bug-eyed man needed a minute or two to come to terms with such an important revelation.

He turned the corner to find… lifting the word for it from the stored human memories he realised it was a closed 'door'. Curious he walked up to it.

He could sense the humans on the other side of the door, but he had no idea how to get to them, so mystifying.

He stood there a while, trying to work out the puzzle that is a 'door'. From Pepper, Steve and Fury's memories he knew you opened a 'door' by turning the knob thing, but he was fairly certain you need hands to do that.

He was still staring at the rectangular smooth thing when Bug-eyed man walked up next to him, Tony could sense that he was confused by something.

So just in case;

"_It's a 'door' … just so you know,_" Tony 'said' seriously before turning back to the 'said' 'door'.

Bug-eyed man sighed and muttered something about 'crazy unicorn', but Tony was going to figure this out, but Bug-eyed-man swiftly pushed past him, and instantly Tony knew his real name; Clint, that he liked archery and was, like seemingly like every other human in this place, a part from Pepper, a protector.

As he read all the other information he was getting from Clint, Clint opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind him.

When Tony realised this he was stunned; yeah he couldn't open a door but there no reason to rub it in.

He stood patiently for a few minutes before his patience ran out. Then he started nickering in worry, for one thing he couldn't 'talk' to the humans anymore, they were out of range.

What if the 'Four' thing showed its true colours, he wouldn't be able to help protect the protectors, he would be stuck on this side of the stupid 'door!'

...

The other thing; he was getting lonely too.

* * *

The Apartment

Leona was lounging on a couch by the window. It smelt a bit dusty, and sagged a lot under her weight, but this way she could keep an eye on the Tower where her quarry was. She fidgeted a bit and the couch loudly protested. Her disguise charm was a simple one, only disguising her appearance and shape to a woman. Not her weight, voice or scent.

She cursed as her disguise charm bracelet flickered; the damn thing was doing that more and more now.

As the fake human hands were for a few seconds replaced by her real...paws, she felt a pang of regret, though why she felt regret for something she had no choice over was beyond her.

She had heard that a good disguise charm could make you feel a bit... human.

Her accomplice was so paranoid he wouldn't even let her (or anyone else involved in their nefarious plot) to buy anything from the magic community. Her disguise charm had been taken from a skin walker - who, eh, wasn't going to need any more - some 65 years ago.

Her gaze swung back to the tower, but seeing no movement on any balcony her eyes swept up and down the height of the glass and metal monstrosity.

Humans in her opinion were getting so… self-confident, building themselves up higher than those who are supposedly in control; no respect for their betters like in her father's rule. They would not bow to their leaders, unless the leader pleased them.

She had seen what happened when they did not.

She had seen it happen to her father first.

* * *

Unknown, Un-place-able Location

As she hovered, Indiana tapped the purple-glowing homing charm; she wouldn't be able to negotiate the Reflection, as she liked to call the pocket dimension entered through reflection portals, without it.

Satisfied that the homing charm was responding properly she moved to click it back onto her harness but ended up dropping it. With a girly squeal she dived, letting herself increase to speeds impossible anywhere else.

She caught it with ease before it fell through any silver shifting clouds that made up the scenery of the Reflection.

Her wings then desperately flapped to stop her dive and she stayed hovering for a moment the crate swinging below her like the pendulum of a clock.

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps as she muttered to herself; "Now Indiana, just because a miracle has happened, doesn't mean you can let yourself get so distracted. I mean come on, Kamohoalii needs his alcohol or else he'll go and sink some ship or something..."

She probably looked like a mental case floating in the middle of throng of warped fun-house-mirror hazes, but since when had she cared what anyone thought? They kept on changing their mind.

And anyway there wasn't anyone to judge her in the Reflection.

Wings complaining; she checked the homing charm, adjusted her course and glided towards home, towards the one reflection she could rely on in this crazy place hall of mirrors.

* * *

In the Stark/Avengers Tower common room

Fury glared at the gathered Avengers and Pepper, he hated this; something had been shoved on them (again) that that human society had previously been oblivious to.

There were no preceding records they could look up, and even though research seemed to be plentiful, extensive even, they had little way to separate fact from fiction.

Natasha was explaining all that had happened since she and Clint reported to Fury the day before; she was doing a great job of it, remembering details the rest of the Avengers had forgot.

So far a lot of it seemed somewhat far-fetched. Fury was particularly pissed that a possible hostile dragon was able to gain access into the Tower.

Natasha finished her recount. There was silence punctured only by distressed whinnying from outside the door. They had decided that Tony should not be included in this conversation as hopefully it would include tactics on how to go about turning Tony back.

Bruce suddenly spoke up timidly, "I uh, went to the Library this morning, to do some research on unicorns. And it think I may have found a clue."

Steve smiled brightly, "Let's hear it then."

Bruce took out the scrap of paper and read the couplet written on it;

"**_The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown,_**

**_The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town_**."

Natasha continued in her ever present monotone, "Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown, Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town…"

Each person present stared at her and she shrugged, "It's a nursery rhyme," giving no more of an explanation than that.

"Hm, somehow I don't think that's going to help us," Steve summarised as the hope at finding any clue died.

Cap was right, but only partially. As Bruce read the poem, one of the unicorn books, abandoned on the table, reacted; finding the corresponding poem in its many pages and pop-ups, (it was after all a book for those under 20 years).

Upon finding the poem, it was slightly peeved that this page was one of the pages its previous owner had scrawled in, though nothing could be done about that.

The book opened to the page with a *thunk* that instantly alerted the six tense people in the room to it.

Bruce approached the book warily, then peered at the page that it was open on. The top of the page had a sketch of a humanoid lion and a smaller unicorn lock in combat, they twitched slightly under the scientist's gaze.

Bruce looked up nervously, the focus was on him now, he looked back down to the book, picked it up and begun to read aloud to the Team;

**_"The Lion and the Unicorn_**

**_A poem by Fletcher Tawny, a lynx-tawny owl gryphon, who witnessed the historic event of the last unicorn's last act of kindness towards humans; who had left him to be the last, then took his life when he stepped out of the forest to save them._**

**_The poem is quite awkward in areas, as to be expected from an uneducated gryphon, but still captures the thoughts and opinions about the event such as shared by most magical creatures, even to this day. _**

**_~~~~O~~~~_**

**_The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown,_**

**_The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town._**

**_Whistles of the claws sharp like the blade of a knife,_**

**_Besides bruises and cuts, that marred the coat, were rife._**

**_The Unicorn was ever one to shy from strife,_**

**_Yet the Unicorn had to save the child's life._**

**_So the Unicorn fought._**

**_The Lion had fang filled maw,_**

**_And a terrible weapon, the Cat's Claw._**

**_Humans watched with pangs of dread_**

**_As claws spilt blood on the dust they tread_**

**_But as all hope seemed lost and dead,_**

**_The white horse reared with horn stained red._**

**_So the Lion fell._**

**_His once strong leg buckled out,_**

**_The Prince escaped claws with a shout._**

**_The Humans with rusty weapons closed in,_**

**_Together they finished as one kin._**

**_And the Unicorn turned his eyes away from the din,_**

**_For killing was not his sin._**

**_..._**

**_The Unicorn died a few years after,_**

**_Hunted and tanned on the rafter,_**

**_The horn cut off and hung in a frame._**

**_He was the last of this game._**

**_He wanted no glory or fame,_**

**_And very few knew his name._**

**_Now the story is long lost in time,_**

**_All that in left is this; and this is just a rhyme,_**

**_Because it made many feel blue;_**

**_And since; "rhymes are rarely true."_**

**_The humans forgot."_**

The last verse was hastily scribbled in ink and was slightly smudged. It read an ominous personal warning Bruce nervously gulped before proceeding to read it;

**_"Beware, The Lion King's Blood lives still,_**

**_The Claw has a new wearer who means ill,_**

**_As The Claw's history is always carved in gore._**

**_If now horn and claw,_**

**_Were to meet once more,_**

**_Ahead looms a Magic War_**

**_So Avengers prepare to fight"_**

Bruce finished reading the poem and looked up to his Team. Each was thinking very hard about the poem and its meaning, resulting in an awkward silence.

Thor had grabbed some pop tarts seemingly from thin air

Clint was fiddling with one of his arrows as he sat on the edge of the table, mumbling something about mass produced arrows.

Pepper was peering down at her coffee deciding whether or not she should drink it, but kept on looking worriedly at the door, beyond which Tony's whinnies were increasing in volume.

Natasha was staring at Bruce, which for a few moments creeped him out until she switched to observing Steve.

Steve was staring off into space, which was worrying at the best of times. It usually meant that he was thinking of past events, most of the time either the war or Peggy.

Fury's one eyed stare was boring into the book in Bruce's hands, like it was the source of all of his problems, which it wasn't, it had just alerted him to a possible threat against one of his Avengers, who had been turned into a unicorn. That was completely not the book's fault, but the book still pissed Fury.

…

*CRASH!*

Tony jumped over the door which was now lying on the floor as he had just kicked it down, and ran towards the middle of the group, he was so desperate to get among the humans he bumped up next to Thor.

In the second Tony was in contact with Thor, about three hundred years' worth of memories flooded into his mind along with processing of Aseir thinking structures and speech.

In short his mind was overwhelmed and did the thing that a lot of minds do when it can't process all the information it's receiving.

Tony fainted.

"_System shutdown sounds cooler_," was heard in everyone's mind, including Thor's this time, as the equine/bovine-ed genius' legs fell out from beneath him and his eyes rolled back into his head.

* * *

The Apartment

She was cat-napping, one eye opened for any sign of movement on the Tower, when she heard the rattle of keys in the door and the murmur of muffled discussion, she tensed. Somebody was coming inside? No, no, no!

Leona swore nobody was using this apartment, it was for rent and had been for a while, but the scents had gone stale, so she figured it had little interest, which she gathered was slightly strange... Stop! Focus on the problem at hand.

Somebody was coming in, if they saw her and escaped, they would call the police, the police would come, she would resist capture, probably show off some of her moves and then maybe one or two of the Avengers would be called in.

If the disguise charm flickered at any time, her cover would be instantly blown and her accomplice would pin this on her and not the malfunctioning charm.

She would probably be killed whatever happened.

Wait, she could do this, she just had to hide, then attack. She padded silently behind the corner adjacent to the entryway. It was moments like these, when she would have been relying on her human instincts as adrenalin surged, that she didn't feel very human anymore.

The door opened and Leona could hear what the people were saying now.

She heard a woman's voice addressing someone else, "Harley, there's more work in New York, that's why we're here."

She realised that she had leaped forward and attacked the woman when she felt warm blood gushing in her mouth.

She let go of the woman's neck and stared down at the human she'd slayed… she hadn't meant to kill her really and definitely not by her newer abilities. She hadn't even killed a human since her transformation and had never ever killed a woman, even when she had slain with iron instead of claws and teeth.

There was a sound by the door, a sharp intake of breath. She looked up slowly her amber eyes meeting with wide blue eyes. The boy had brownish blonde just like his mothers, just like Leona had when she had she was human with hair instead of a monster with fur.

The boy was staring at her, hand hanging tightly onto the door-knob; she knew she must look like a freaking vampire with the blood dripping from her mouth and fangs, which the disguise charm refused to hide for some reason.

The disguise charm flickered, to reveal to him her true form for a few seconds. Which is something much scarier thing than any mere vampire.

His eyes widened and he bolted out of the apartment slamming the door closed behind him.

She let him go, let him run and tire himself out. She was going to have to catch him later, before he got the guts to tell the police or even the Avengers about her, but she'll let him run for now.

After all she could track a scent now.

* * *

**Kamohoalii- A Hawaiian shark god, though in this story he wouldn't be a god, just a long-lived, powerful, multiple-species skin walker.**

**In case you're wondering, the Harley in this story is Harley from Iron Man 3. Don't worry, I won't have any spoilers for Iron Man 3…yet, and when I do I'll write a warning in the Author's note prior to the chapter.**

**Harley is so cute that I had to include him in the story even if it was for something terrible to happen. Otherwise he and Tony would never- Wait no! Spoilers! more on that stuff later.**

**Please, please tell me if I need to increase the age/rating thingy, I'm still kinda new to this stuff and I don't want to get suspended or something.**

**The next update will probably come in two weeks, don't exploded until then.**

**It's nearly school holidays for me, yay!**


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